"Nothing was omitted that might make for the temporiser"; even the example of Paul, who went up into the Temple to pay his vow by the advice of the Apostle James, which step, however, Knox pronounced at once, notwithstanding his absolute reverence for Holy Writ, to have been wrong, and not of God -- a mistake of both the Apostles, and manifestly bringing no blessing with it.

This threat had no effect on Kutusoff; he persisted in remaining inactive; either because to the frost of age was superadded that of winter, and that in his shattered frame his mind was depressed by the sight of so many ruins; or that, from another effect of old age, a person becomes prudent when he has scarcely any thing to risk, and a temporiser when he has no more time to lose.